Watco earns accolades for rails By Carol Bronson, lifestyles@pratttribune.com Published: Friday, March 21, 2008 12:35 PM CDT A Kansas railroad has been recognized as a Railroad of the Year by an industry magazine, but not for the speed and power of its engines, the length of its trains or the volume of goods it moves. The South Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad (SKOL), consisting of 404 mainline track miles across southeastern Kansas was named Regional Railroad of the Year by "Railway Age" magazine, the transportation industry's oldest trade magazine. The line earned recognition for its successful turnaround after massive flooding last summer, resulting in 38 miles of submerged track and an embargo stopping traffic on 250 miles of railroad. Emergency repairs were completed in just 23 days, allowing traffic flow over the entire railroad. Repairs of signals, bridges, grade crossings and ditches and debris removal is ongoing. SKOL is owned by Watco Companies, Inc., based in Pittsburg, which also owns the Kansas and Oklahoma (K & O) Railroad. A branch of that road connects the southern edge of Pratt with Garden Plain. Another branch runs through Sawyer, Coats and Croft in southern Pratt County, connecting Wichita and Protection. K & O also has lines in western Kansas to the Colorado border and in north central Kansas. In contrast to Union Pacific, which stops traffic on Pratt's North Main Street several times each day, K & O is relatively quiet. Except during grain harvest seasons, travelers are rarely stopped by a train at South Main or nine miles south on U.S. 281 in Sawyer. Trains don't barrel across the highway - in Pratt the track stops at Kanza Co-op's south elevator and 25 miles per hour in open country is standard. The so-called "short lines" are important, however. "They're worth a lot to us," said Jim Bob Lewton, grain merchandiser for Kanza Co-op. Shipping grain by rail is cheaper than by truck and more volume can be moved at one time, he explained. Short line miles represent 42 percent of the 4,776 miles of railroad in Kansas, according to a Kansas Department of Transportation report. In 2004, 145 carloads were shipped, equivalent to 507,000 semi-trailer loads. Grain products fill most of the cars, however industrial use for products like paper and chemicals is increasing. In the KDOT report, shippers said if they didn't have the short line railroad, 250,000 trucks, loaded as heavy as 80,000 pounds, 30 times that of a car, would have to travel Kansas highways to move grain. "When you look at the number of trucks and the damage they would do to highways, the cost-benefit ratio (for short line railroad) is 50-1," said Pat Cedeno, chief operating officer for Watco's Central Region. The "other piece" is the ability of country elevators to move grain out quickly and make room for more and access markets that might not otherwise be available, Cedeno said. "Large railroads have put together an operating plan to move big trains across big chunks of country," Cedeno said. "Our job is to fill in the blanks." When Watco purchased K & O in 2001, much of the track was on the verge of being shut down.
Actually, I think both numbers are wrong. Or the context is scrambled up. In 2004, 145 carloads, when speaking of all those miles of short lines? Boxcab E50
